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John Carpenter has always expressed his love of so-called b-movies and creature features from the 50s and 60s. An undoubted classic if this era was The Thing From Another World, directed by Christian Nyby and produced by JCs favourite director, Howard Hawks. This black and white film is a great example of 50s sci-fi and those films claimed to have been particularly influenced by the reds-under-the-bed hysteria surrounding the McCarthy era. The film manages to transcend it's man-in-a-rubber-suit origins and succeed in scaring the audience.

After the successes of Halloween and EFNY JC was definitely Hollywood's horror movie director of choice to remake this classic movie. The original heavily distorted the original source, a short story entitled Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell. In the B&W version the shapeshifting qualities of the alien are replaced with a simple, though effective, monster movie. With the state of the art in special effects Carpenter brings the paranoid qualities of the original novel to the screen.

At a scientific research station, Station 4, a group of individuals try to bear out the long hard winter. MacReady (Kurt Russel) is the stations helicopter pilot. The initial scenes of the film emphasis the loneliness and boredom of the men, showing Russel getting 'upset' with a computer chess game. The men are desperate for anything to relieve the boredom.

Across the snow desert a dog comes running, towards the station. It is pursued by a group of very angry Norwegians in a helicopter, they attempt to shoot the dog, but are unsuccessful, the dog is taken in by the men of Station 4. Things are getting a little wierd. During the night the dog mutates into god knows what. The special effects are stunning, creating horrific, sickening images. MacReady successfully fights off the creature with a flamethrower, but it is only a temporary victory.

An investigation of the Norwegians' camp reveals that it has been completely gutted by fire, with no survivors. Video tapes show that the Norwegians were trying to dig something huge out of the snow. These video scenes are very similar to scenes from the original, almost as if Carpenters version is carrying on from where the original left off.

Eventually the men begin to realise that they have an alien in their midst, an alien that is capable of taking on the form of any living thing it chooses, even the men themselves. This creates the perfect atmosphere for paranoia and distrust. Carpenter expertly plays on these emotions creationg a claustrophobic undercurrent of terror to complement the horrific visuals.

The Thing is, simply, one of the scariest films ever made, ranking alongside the likes of Alien, Evil Dead and Carpenter's own Halloween. Many critics felt the disgusting special FX overpowered the story, but I feel the film is essentially about the human characters. Their predicament, and the almost impossibilty of dealing with it, is the real terror of the film. An absolute classic that should be seen by every horror film fan.

This film was the reason I bought a DVD player. I had been jealous of laserdisc owners who had this film with the JC/Russel commentary for a long time and when I finally left college and this disc came out I had the money and reason to get hold of the hardware. At that time it was still far too common for R1 (thats Region 1 i.e. USA and Canada discs for those who have never heard of such a thing) discs to either be better (especially for extras) or not even be released in Europe (R2) so I ordered the R1 disc off the net and got lumbered with the awful NTSC system (tech fact: NTSC has less lines than the European PAL system, so the picture is often not as sharp). Still, this was a classic film with a boatload of extras on the disc, so it still had to be worth getting.

The dissapointing stuff first: the disc does not have an anamorphic transfer i.e "not specially formatted for widescreen TVs". This means that in order to get the image to fill your screen you have to ZOOM in on it (using the "intelligent" autoSize feature on mosy TVs usually just stretches it a bit). This zoom, coupled with the NTSC "less lines feature" means this is not a fantastic image. While thankful that the film is still in widescreen, and still brilliant, this is a dissapointment that the extra stuff does in some way make up for.

There are stacks of extras on this disc: a new (new when the DVD was released) 60minute documentary is fantastic, interviewing a lot of the cast and crew (Kurt Russel appears on the set of Executive Decision), just letting them ramble on wonderfully about the time they had making the film. It is split chronologically into pre-production, filming and release allowing a narrative flow to be built up that is really effective in conveying the utter dissapointment of everyone involved when the film tanked with the critics and the box office. The docu also has a hidden feature where you can watch it with the vocal audio turned off and thus get to listen to the complete film score instead.

There are numerous other extras (trailers, TV spots, behind the scenes, outtakes,etc.) that all make up a fantastic package, but the ultimate extra is the JC and Kurt Russel commentary. These two old friends are having such a laugh doing this (I swear you can hear glasses clinking at some points) that it rises above the serious (and frankly boring) thing that a film commentary can sometimes be.

So while dissapointing that this is not anamorphic, and there are currently no plans to release it as such, this is a fantastic DVD. The Region 2 release is pretty much the same I think, with the advantage of a better pic quality than the R1. One other thing to note about the DVD is the use of the "original" score - when put onto VHS the rights to Stevie Wonders "Superstitous" were not secured so the tape uses another track at that point. The DVD reinstates the use of the classic song.

Technical Details:

Release Information:
• Universal Studios
• Theatrical Release Date: June 25, 1982
• DVD Release Date: May 7, 2002
• Run Time: 108 minutes
• Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
• Available subtitles: Spanish, English (captions)
• Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only)
• Commentary by director John Carpenter and actor Kurt Russell
• Production notes
• Theatrical trailer(s)
• Documentary "John Carpenter's The Thing: Terror Takes Shape" featuring interviews with John Carpenter, Kurt Russell, make-up designer Rob Bottin, matte artist Albert Whitlock, and other cast and crew members, plus outtakes, work-in-progress special effects footage and behind-the-scenes footage
• Outtakes
• Behind-the-scenes photographs
• Storyboards and conceptual art
• Annotated production archive
• Widescreen letterbox format (2.35:1)

STORY SYNOPSIS from Computer Artworks (game developers)

After the enigmatic deaths of an American scientific expedition in the uncharted and frozen wastelands of the Antarctic, a military rescue team is sent to investigate their deaths. Within these inhospitable surroundings the team encounters a strange shape-shifting alien life-form that assumes the appearance of people that it kills. The game brings fear and suspense to unimaginable levels, with a compelling plot and unique gameplay elements based upon action, evasion, trust and fear. Forget everything you ever learned about obliterating alien species simply with a barrage of violent ammunition - this monster is difficult to see, hard to kill, and seemingly impossible to evade.

When you think about it, its amazing The Thing was not adapted as a video game a long time ago. It has that sci-fi/horror/kill-em-all appeal that most games would die for; that fantastic ingredient that appeals to the mostly male gameplaying population. It would have been pretty easy to cook up a tiein that concentrated on the user running around and torching wierd aliens in dark corridors. A similar movie game was developed for the C64 and Spectrum in the 80s, that one based on Aliens and I remember it scaring the crap out of me once in a while as I wandered around the dark hallways. I guess the relatively poor financial performance of The Thing meant that we were lucky enough for the title not to be cashed in until both hardware and game playing had evolved far enough to produce the skillful, suspenseful and inspired piece of work that this game undoubtedly is.

In common with any JC/sci-fi/horror/PS2 fan (pretty much all males over 20?) I was well excited when I heard of this title - Resident Evil was my fave game (before GTA III came along) and the chance to play the same sort of stuff inside a JC created universe had me and a million others on the pre-order page as fast as we could. The game was a pretty big success, even sparking rumours that Universal were watching the sales to see if a sequel to the movie might be a bit of a moneyspinner. When the game arrived and I got to finally live within a JC movie.

The game has a plot, and its a bit of a cliched one but an acceptable development of the original movie. You play a hard-bitten marine (not quite RJ MacReady as that wouldn't have made sense really) sent to investigate "strange" disappearances in the antarctic. I don't want to rehash the movie plot, so I'll assume you know it and thus know what I mean when the game starts you off in the remains of Station 4, in freezing arctic conditions, with your team aching for you to get them to warmth indoors. The initial look of the game does not dissapoint - a snowstorm reduces visibility as you trudge through a surround sound landscape to the perfectly rendered burnt out base. The graphics and sound are top class, as are the cut scenes that help to flesh out the plot.

I have to admit that I was at first a bit disappointed with the gameplay. The developers, instead of opting for multi-control (switching between characters) or simple sheep behaviour, have tried to instill some independence in your team members. They will follow orders, but only if they are not scared witless or do not suspect you of being The Thing. This is one of the games strongpoints as it preserves the best aspect of the movie (who is The Thing?) within the gameplay. You have to work with your team, comforting them and treating them properly to get them to go with you. This is all represented by trust/paranoia meters that you can control by doing nice things such as keeping your team in ammo. The trouble with this system is it takes some getting use to, especially to a Doom-playing guns-blazing type like me. To help with this the developers have made the first few levels pretty straightforward to introduce you to each aspect of the gameplay slowly and seperately; ironically this is what creates the initial dissapointment. The first few levels are kept simple to enable you to concentrate on grappling with this new type of control system. It was this linear progression through uninspiring scenarios that made it a bit boring at first (the developers do try to spice things up by shoving in lots of direct references to the film) and I was disappointed that the game was shaping up to be a "run back to get that object to open the door in front of you, shoot/kill, repeat" type adventure.

Thankfully I persevered through this and now find myself playing a game I cannot put down. The earlier levels get you so familiar with the excellent, intuitive control system that when the real shit starts going down you don't get distracted by having to look up exactly how to get the medic to heal you after a firefight before you take on the next big mother battle. With each level the complexity of the plot progresses and you just get drawn into it. The real proof of success is that this game is scary. I found myself waiting on corners as I didn't really want to necessarily see what was round the corner just yet, I needed to get my breath back before the next scare took me completely by surprise. As each level unfolds I find myself very impressed by the scale and depth of complexity of the plot and gameplay. This is a fantastic game and the fact it is a JC tie-in is just all the better.

So the developers havn't just made Resident Evil with Rob Bottin graphics, they have crafted a new style of horror survival game that is just right up there at the top. The plot isn't totally inspired (remember Aliens when it turned out the corporation wanted to breed the aliens for weapons?) but is sets a decent frame for a fantastic game. Get it now.

Technical Details:

Genre: Survival Horror Action
Format: PC, Xbox, PS2
Minimum PC System Requirements: 64 MB RAM, 600 Mb HD space, 400Mhz PII Processor, 4x+ CD-ROM drive, DX8 Compatible Card, 8Mb Video memory, DirectSound8 Compatible Card
Recommended PC System Requirements: 64 MB RAM, 600 Mb HD space, 600Mhz PIII Processor, 4x+ CD-ROM drive, DX8 Compatible Card, 8Mb Video memory, DirectSound8 Compatible Card
Publisher: Universal Interactive Studios and Konami

The Thing, while being a remaked of the original B&W "Thing From Another World" is based on the original sci-fi classic Who Goes There. While also being a really good short story reading it highlights how much JC and the writers returned to the original source novel when remaking the basic creature feature that was the original Howard Hawks produced movie. The fantastic Thing website Outpost 31 has the complete text online.

In addition to Who Goes There there has been much speculation that JC's version was partly inspired by Lovecraft's In The Mouth of Madness which you can judge for yourself as it is also available to read online. It is a good story (I think Lovecraft did some fantastic stuff) and above the obvious similarities (horror in the Antarctic) you can definitely seem some similarity in the themes, especially if you think of the creature in The Thing as more of a mythic entity than a simple alien. How much it did influence JC is anyone's guess.

The Thing was pretty much a disaster upon its release. JC was accused of being nothing more than a pornographer, trying to titillate and disgust with the amazing special effects. This was apparently entertainment of the lowest order and the film bombed financially. Videotape (as with a lot of JCs films, and now DVD) was pretty much its saviour as it built up a cult following in the 80s and 90s, culminating in the recent videogame and rumours of sequels. In the mid to late 90s a number of articles appeared reappraising The Thing, highlighting the use of psychological terror and fantastic filmaking amongs the admittedly jaw dropping special effects. One of the most prominent articles was the release of the BFIs critical essay on The Thing by Anne Billson. Billson is a respected film critic and gave the film a true evaluation instead of the pathetic kneejerk reaction of those critics who cannot handle anything not absolutely real in a film unless it is done by Fellini.